One of the Best

sources of reading about the lies about public schools is the 1995 book by educators David C. Berliner and Bruce J. Biddle titled The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America's Public Schools. The book is still relevant today, and it is meticulously researched.

It explains in very clear detail about what standardized testing actually measures, and of course it deals with the ongoing propaganda by the far right in undermining public schools. One of the highlights is the authors' discussion of the suppression of the Sandia Report, excerpts from pages 165-168:

"This report, initially prepared in 1990 by officials of the Sandia National Laboratories, a component of the U.S. Department of Energy, documents a careful analysis of the status of American education. Major findings in The Sandia Report flatly contradicted claims about education that were then being peddled by President Bush in his administration, so the report was squelched.

"How this was done is largely told by David Tanner, and we draw much of our story from his account. By early 1990 George Bush had announced his intention to become 'the education president.' Since this goal involved overhauling the supposed shortcomings of schools, officials in his administration were motivated to help by gathering supportive evidence. To this end, James Watkins, then secretary of energy, made the 'tragic mistake' of instructing the Sandia National Laboratories, a former wing of the Atomic Energy Commission, to undertake a comprehensive study of the status of American education...

"The study itself drew from existing data sources and was originally drafted in late 1990. It was then circulated among various educators and researchers for comment, and it became the subject of briefings in the Department of Education and a congressional hearing in the summer of 1991. Alarmingly (to supporters of President Bush), many of its findings flatly contradicted claims then being made by administration officials, claims that eventually undergirded Bush's education initiative, America 2000. This led officials in the Department of Education and others in the administration to demand that The Sandia Report not be released by instead that it be subjected to unprecedented reviews by minions of the National Center for Education Statistics and the National Science Foundation...

"These reviews were conducted, the reviewers dutifully detected trivial 'flaws' in the report, and it was recommended that the report not be released but that it be rewritten and subjected to further reviews. Following these recommendations, the report was rewritten and was subjected to more internal review, further demands for rewriting, and even an audit by the General Accounting Office--all of which effectively prevented timely release of the report.

"But America is a wonderful land, where photocopying machines abound, and within a few months scores of draft copies of the report had been 'leaked' and were floating around the country. A condensed version of the report was then printed in the Albuquerque Journal on September 24, 1991. As Daniel Tanner explains, this 'prompted Secretary Watkins to issue an immediate response...dated 30 September, [which] opened with this sentence: "The Sandia National Laboratories study, 'Perspectives on Education in America,' reported in your September 24 issue is dead wrong."' Finally, the report itself eventually appeared in the Journal of Educational Research--without fanfare, without even a listing of its authors!--after George Bush had been voted out of office. To our knowledge, no former official of the Bush administration has as yet publicly acknowledged that, in view of Sandia report evidence, some claims about 'the education crisis' or plans outlined in America 2000 might have to be modified.

"The trouble with suppressing evidence is that it leads to policy errors that can ruin people's lives..."

So again we are seeing more attacks on public education claiming it is "failing." Now schools are under more pressure than ever from the No Child Left Behind Act, a bill that from talking with fellow teachers, is widely hated. Not only are at-risk schools "at risk" of not meeting the requirements set forth in the bill, but also many schools in higher income neighborhoods are at risk for "needing improvement." One teacher told me today that one of the wealthier schools in the district is perhaps in the 95th percentile on test scores, but if it fails to maintain or exceed this level, it can be considered "needing improvement." If people from middle class and wealthy neighborhoods knew exactly what kind of a piece of shit this bill is (and inexplicably Ted Kennedy and other Democrats supported it), they would raise holy hell about it.

Of course the bill, or rather law, is designed to cause schools to fail. Cut down on the funding, and these schools, no matter how well they've progressed, will fail. That's when the fraudulent voucher schemes come into play, and handouts can go to rich schools and to the racist, sexist "Christian" academies, or perhaps some shady operators will just create lousy schools in order to bilk the taxpayers. What a mess.